There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just say it: We’re no longer No. 1. Today, we’re No. 2. Yes, it’s official. The Chinese economy just overtook the United States economy to become the largest in the world. For the first time since Ulysses S. Grant was president, America is not the leading economic power on the planet.

It just happened — and almost nobody noticed.

The International Monetary Fund recently released the latest numbers for the world economy. And when you measure national economic output in “real” terms of goods and services, China will this year produce $17.6 trillion — compared with $17.4 trillion for the U.S.A. “

You voted for “fundamental change” and the man has delivered …

” As recently as 2000, we produced nearly three times as much as the Chinese.

To put the numbers slightly differently, China now accounts for 16.5% of the global economy when measured in real purchasing-power terms, compared with 16.3% for the U.S.

This latest economic earthquake follows the development last year when China surpassed the U.S. for the first time in terms of global trade.”

These two paragraphs should send chills down any forward-looking American’s spines , especially amongst the young …

” Make no mistake: This is a geopolitical earthquake with a high reading on the Richter scale. Throughout history, political and military power have always depended on economic power. Britain was the workshop of the world before she ruled the waves. And it was Britain’s relative economic decline that preceded the collapse of her power. And it was a similar story with previous hegemonic powers such as France and Spain.

This will not change anything tomorrow or next week, but it will change almost everything in the longer term. We have lived in a world dominated by the U.S. since at least 1945 and, in many ways, since the late 19th century. And we have lived for 200 years — since the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 — in a world dominated by two reasonably democratic, constitutional countries in Great Britain and the U.S.A. For all their flaws, the two countries have been in the vanguard worldwide in terms of civil liberties, democratic processes and constitutional rights.”

” IMF chief Christine Lagarde, one of the world’s most powerful women, announced Wednesday she had been charged with “negligence” over a multi-million-euro graft case relating to her time as French finance minister.

The shock announcement came a day after she was grilled for more than 15 hours by a special court in Paris that probes ministerial misconduct, the fourth time she has been questioned in a case that has long weighed upon her position as managing director of the International Monetary Fund.”

” The International Monetary Fund slashed its forecast for US economic growth on Monday, citing a harsh winter, problems in the housing market and weak international demand for the country’s products.

In its annual review of the US economy, the IMF cut its growth forecast by 0.8 percentage points to 2%. At a press conference IMF managing director Christine Lagarde blamed the bad winter for much of the cut and said the setback should be temporary. But she warned: “Growth in and of itself will not be enough.”

As part of a series of reforms the IMF has called for an increase in the minimum wages in the US, currently the lowest when compared to the average wage in any of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s 34 countries.

She said the number of long-term unemployed, 3.4 million in May according to the Department of Labor, remained too high and the percentage of people in or actively looking for work, the so-called participation rate, remained too low.”

” The IMF believes the US also needs to do more to mitigate the impact of its aging population and to stimulate productivity. The best option would be for government to boost spending, notably on infrastructure, the IMF said.”

” The US is on the brink of losing its status as the world’s largest economy, and is likely to slip behind China this year, sooner than widely anticipated, according to the world’s leading statistical agencies.

The US has been the global leader since overtaking the UK in 1872. Most economists previously thought China would pull ahead in 2019.

The figures, compiled by the International Comparison Program hosted by the World Bank, are the most authoritative estimates of what money can buy in different countries and are used by most public and private sector organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund. This is the first time they have been updated since 2005.

After extensive research on the prices of goods and services, the ICP concluded that money goes further in poorer countries than it previously thought, prompting it to increase the relative size of emerging market economies.

The estimates of the real cost of living, known as purchasing power parity or PPPs, are recognised as the best way to compare the size of economies rather than using volatile exchange rates, which rarely reflect the true cost of goods and services: on this measure the IMF put US GDP in 2012 at $16.2tn, and China’s at $8.2tn.”

” Cyprus said on Saturday it was looking at seizing a quarter of the value of big deposits at its largest bank as it races to raise the funds for a bailout from the European Union and avert financial collapse.

Finance Minister Michael Sarris said “significant progress” had been made in talks in Nicosia with officials from the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.

He confirmed discussions were centered on a possible levy of around 25 percent on holdings of over 100,000 euros at Bank of Cyprus, and expressed hope that a package could be ready by the end of the day for approval by parliament.”

” Ordinary people with bank accounts in Cyprus have been well and truly screwed by eurozone officials who raided their savings with a one off solidarity tax levy. The fall out could be a run on European banks.

People across Europe can hardly be expected to trust a word that comes out of the mouths of their political masters after the unprecedented bailout levy enforced on Cypriot bank deposits.

No distinction was drawn between the bank accounts of supposed Russian money launderers and ordinary citizens in Cyprus with accounts containing less than €100,000. Britons, not even part of the eurozone, have an estimated €2 billion in Cyriot accounts. As Forbes pointed out, these depositors were under the “impression they were protected by a deposit guarantee scheme.” Now they find their accounts raided and 6.75 percent of their cash deposits stolen in a hastily dreamt up tax. It will be little consolation to receive bank shares in compensation, particularly if deposits were needed to finance standing orders and mortgage payments.”

U.S. taxpayers have been responsible for about 20 percent of those bailouts, or approximately $17 billion so far, even as the Eurozone continues to crumble and the debt crisis spreads to Italy and Spain.